James Smithson (c. 1765–June 27, 1829), scientist and philanthropist, was born James Louis Macie in Paris, where his mother gave birth to him in secret. His father, Hugh Smithson, was the first Duke ...

James Smithson by Hattie Elizabeth Burdette, 1872 NPG. In many ways it is James Smithson's science that … proved the crucial key to his story. Chemistry was the cutting-edge field of Smithson's ...

Although Smithson’s papers and his vast mineral collection were all destroyed by fire in 1865, the story of his life and work has been largely recovered in the recent biography, The Lost World of ...

In 1823, James Smithson wrote a short article about a novel method he’d developed for making coffee. The article, first published in the Thomson's Annals of Philosophy, ...

The Stranger and the Statesman: James Smithson, John Quincy Adams, and the Making of America’s Greatest Museum: the Smithsonian By Nina Burleigh HarperCollins, 298 pages, $24.95 The Smithsonian ...

Smithsonian Research Associate Heather Ewing talked about the life of English scientist James Smithson, the founding donor of the Smithsonian Institution. She described how Smithson's ...

The world’s largest museum complex, the Smithsonian Institution, was founded on this day in history, Aug. 10, 1846, after English scientist James Smithson made a generous gift.

Architectural historian Heather Ewing talked about her book [The Lost World of James Smithson: Science, Revolution, and the Birth of the Smithsonian], published by Bloomsbury USA. She recounted ...

James Smithson never set foot in America during his lifetime. It’s a mystery why the gentleman-scientist, who died in 1829, decided to leave $500,000 to a country he’d never visited.

The Smithsonian Museum of American History on Thursday honored Gloria Estefan; her husband, Emilio Estefan; Dave Grohl, and Susan Tedeschi with the James Smithson Bicentennial Medals.